inst him.

The feeling of uncertainty as to Stoutenburg's fate softened Gilda's
heart toward him. She knew that he had become a wanderer on the face of
the earth, Cain-like, homeless, friendless, practically kinless; she
pitied him far more than she did Groeneveld or the others who were
looking death quite closely in the face.

She was infinitely sorry for him, for him and for his wife, for whose
sake he had been false to his first love. The gentle murmur of the
breeze, the distant call of the water-fowl, seemed to bring back to
Gilda's ears those whisperings of ardent passion which had come from
Stoutenburg's lips years ago. She had listened to them with joy then,
with glowing eyes cast down and cheeks that flamed up at his words.

And as she listened to these dream-sounds others more concrete mingled
with the mystic ones far away: the sound of stealthy footsteps upon the
flagged path of the garden, and of a human being breathing and panting
somewhere close by, still hidden by the gathering shadows of the night.

She held her breath to listen--not at all frightened, for the sound of
those footsteps, the presence of that human creature close by, were in
tune with her mood of expectancy of something that was foredoomed to
come.

Suddenly the breeze brought to her ear the murmur of her name, whispered
as if in an agony of pleading:

"Gilda!"

She leaned right out of the window. Her eyes, better accustomed to the
dim evening light, perceived a human figure that crouched against the
yew hedge, in the fantastic shadow cast by the quaintly shaped peacock
at the corner close to the house.

"Gilda!" came the murmur again, more insistent this time.

"Who goes there?" she called in response: and it was an undefinable
instinct stronger than her will that caused her to drop her own voice
also to a whisper.

"A fugitive hunted to his death," came the response scarce louder than
the breeze. "Give me shelter, Gilda--human bloodhounds are on my track."

Gilda's heart seemed to stop its beating; the human figure out there in
the shadows had crept stealthily nearer. The window out of which she
leaned was only a few feet from the ground; she stretched out her hand
into the night.

"There is a projection in the wall just there," she whispered hurriedly,
"and the ivy stems will help you.... Come!"

The fugitive grasped the hand that was stretched out to him in pitying
helpfulness. With the aid of the projection in the wall a